Stephen Hepburn: Let us wait until the Minister answers. That is probably the best way to deal with that question.
	Why do we need to impose statutory duties on directors? The law is not consistent. How can that be fair? How can we justify the fact that, if a director financially mismanages his company, he can go to jail for seven years, yet if through his gross negligence, he causes the death of an employee, he can walk away scot-free? That simply cannot be justified? The law is inconsistent and the law is not just.

Stephen Hepburn: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for his work on health and safety in exposing consistently the problems that workers face.
	I mentioned the headline incidents, which are tragedies, but every week the number of workplace deaths add up to another Hatfield rail crash and every month the number of workplace deaths add up to another King's Cross fire. Rather than talking about the statistics, however, we should talk about the people: mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, loved ones and individuals. One of my constituents, Mr. Tom King, an elderly gentleman, came to see me. His only son went to work on an oil rig in Scotland and died in a tragic accident. He has explored every channel and gone down every path, and I have tried my best, but without justice. The sheriff at the Scottish fatal accident inquiry into the case of Richard King said that it was inexcusable that no individual had been prosecuted. In the light of that, how can anyone oppose such a simple Bill?
	Since launching the Bill, I have spoken to many families and they have the same stories and tragedies to relate. We met some at a reception in Parliament last night. Simon Jones's mother, Ann Jones, gave a heartbreaking story about the trauma that she has suffered. We come across such stories every day.

Tony Lloyd: Although my hon. Friend says that the Bill is about creating not a blame culture but a responsibility culture, there is significant merit in having a named director who is responsible for health and safety. One sensible amendment, on which I am sure the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) would want to support me—I know that my hon. Friend does not intend his Bill to do this, but it would move us in the right direction—would be to require a designated named director who would have responsibility, and who in breach of it would end up in the worst possible cases before the court. One problem is that there has never been the opportunity to prosecute the controlling mind or the mind at fault when great or less well known tragedies occur. Therefore although I totally support the Bill, I urge my hon. Friend to take it a little further in Committee.

Stephen Hepburn: The hon. Gentleman raises a very good point. That is exactly what this Bill is about. He talks about disparate organisations in a large company, and that is why large-scale tragedies have occurred; the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. The information director would work from the top, disseminating information on health and safety practices and on avoiding problems throughout the company.
	All my hon. Friends and I ask is a simple thing. Let any director who is so negligent and irresponsible that he causes the death of one of his employees be held accountable under the law, just as a member of the public or an employer would be. What can be more simple and fair than that? It is a simple Bill that would bring about positive change, greater responsibility in the boardroom and increased accountability of directors, and would improve the safety of workers and deliver justice for victims.
	The existing law is patently not working. It fails to impose legally binding duties on the one group of people in a company who can make a difference to workers' welfare and safety—the directors. The voluntary code is ineffective; it is failing to change the boardroom culture that the Bill is designed to change. The only way to make a difference is to impose legally binding health and safety duties on company directors. The health and safety experts say that, the Work and Pension Committee says that, and the Bill says that; it is also what the Government once believed. The Government have asked the Health and Safety Commission to report in December on the effectiveness of the voluntary code, but the code is not working at all. Between now and then, one person each day will die in a workplace accident. We have to ask ourselves how many deaths could have been avoided had the provisions of the Bill been enacted. It is time to think again about directors' duties—there is no doubt about that. It is time to ensure safety in the workplace, responsibility in the boardroom and justice in the courts. We must ensure that the Bill goes through today.

Harry Cohen: My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point in setting out the tragic case of the family of one of his constituents. May I put to him the point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn), who introduced the Bill, that the inquest system is not working in such cases? There are extremely long delays, if inquests are heard at all. I do not know whether there was an inquest in the case of Paul Stewart. We heard at a reception yesterday that coroners are incredibly inconsistent from one area to another in how they deal with cases involving health and safety and death. Is there not a case for the Government to examine closely how the inquest system works and improve it?

Tony Lloyd: That is exactly the point, because in the end I hope that we would all want to achieve a reduction in the accident rate. But we have to accept that, judged by that standard, we did very well in the 1970s, when the health and safety at work legislation was introduced and the Health and Safety Commission was set up, but we have not done extraordinarily better since then. There are areas where we have done better, but my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) told the House this morning that in the construction industry things are definitely not going in the right direction at the moment. We need to remember that.
	My hon. Friend played a tremendously powerful role recently with his own legislation relating to new types of working. We have to recognise that the world of employment has changed significantly in recent years. The days of the old factories and large institutions, which were easy to slot into a safety regime, are almost over, and the Health and Safety Commission is not geared up to the modern world of a work force with people are being shipped in—sometimes legally, sometimes illegally—to do types of work whose existence we scarcely even recognise. Those are the areas where we need to take a proper look at the whole safety case.
	Over the years I have dealt with many cases—not simply the great tragedies such as the Herald of Free Enterprise or King's Cross, but cases such as that of the individual family who has lost a son, like the case that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend mentioned. People in my constituency have suffered these individual tragedies, and they are not necessarily deaths. People may simply have had their life changed permanently because of accident, injury or other things that happen in the workplace through exposure to the wrong substances—things that really are life-changing, and life-changing always in the worst way. I believe passionately that in view of such situations, we need to alter the safety culture, because this is a cultural phenomenon. That is why construction and demolition always were more dangerous, because they do not have the safety culture that would operate in a well-regulated chemical plant, for example. Anyone who has visited such places would know that instantly.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) has spoken about the coal industry. Once it was not a safe industry; it was very dangerous indeed. That was felt to be unacceptable. The safety culture and nationalisation played a large part in improving safety, but the improvement was motivated by a demand for a changed safety culture, and crucially that process was driven through in a way that put responsibility at many different levels of the organisation. That is an important point, on which the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst was seeking clarification.
	That culture in the mining industry transformed health and safety. But in the end, there had to be those at the very top of the Coal Board who drove through the safety culture and the safety case. Part of that was done by delegating responsibility for safety—making it clear that it could be delegated and that, having adequately secured the safety regime and established a proper work safety culture, it would be a defence to say, "I have discharged my duties as director"—or as a middle manager—"and the negligence applies somewhere else". The message was communicated that it would be a legitimate defence to say that the responsibility lay elsewhere in the organisation, but that it had to start from the very top of the organisation. That is why we have to define directors' duties, and it is why I always insist that only one person heads the health and safety effort. It might be the chief executive or the managing director; I do not mind whom we designate legally, as long as it is very clear that there is a controlling mind who takes the ultimate responsibility.
	The hon. Member for Daventry said that if one person was responsible for the dissemination of safety information, others would say, "If only you had told me." That of course is a legitimate defence, because a designated person would be responsible for telling them, and for creating that safety regime. But things go badly wrong when everybody says, "If only somebody had told me." In such cases people feel that nobody is responsible, because everybody is responsible. That was what caused the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, that is what killed Simon Jones and that is what maims people daily in workplaces.

Harry Cohen: On the point made by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), is it not the case that more workers than directors are prosecuted under health and safety legislation? If they are negligent it is right that they should be, but could it be simply that it is easier to prosecute the workers than the directors, although the directors might be much more to blame?
	While my hon. Friend is making very good points about the culture of safety in big companies, will he agree that the Government's faith in the voluntary code has been misplaced? The code has not worked, and that is proven by the Health and Safety Commission, which when it released its figures for 2003–04 said that the previous year deaths had increased by 4 per cent. and injuries by 9 per cent. Do we not need to go further than that voluntary code, with the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) is proposing?

Michael Clapham: My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) made a number of points about injuries in industries in his area, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who noted the great impact of industrial deafness on his community. He also spoke of the effects of the asbestos industry.
	Similarly, there is a great deal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in my community. In 1997, a local authority survey of the community found that about one house in every three included a disabled person. That disability related to their work in heavy industry, such as steel and coal, much of which has now gone.
	When the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 was being considered, the then Government—a Conservative Government—called in Lord Robens to produce a report. The idea of voluntarism actually came from the 1972 Robens report, because the 1974 Act, which embraced the concept of voluntarism, followed from it. There is no doubt that the Act had a positive impact across industry, bringing to industry in general what was already available in the mining industry. Lord Robens had of course spent a 10-year stint, between 1961 and 1970, as chairman of the National Coal Board, so he knew how the coal industry worked, with its worker safety representatives and safety committees. They had access to what was called "covered accommodation", which was actually a small library at the colliery where the colliery plans and all the safety legislation were available for the local safety representatives, to ensure that they were up to speed with what was happening in the industry.
	Lord Robens suggested that the same facilities should be made available to the rest of industry and that is what the 1974 Act did. Many benefits resulted, but they have now slowed down, so we need to revitalise health and safety at work. Indeed, a couple of years ago, the HSC produced a document, "Revitalising health and safety" and we need to pick up on that. The Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) will do that and he deserves congratulations. The measure will take health and safety forward. It complements the Government's proposals on a corporate manslaughter Bill while helping to reinvigorate the 1974 Act. That is most important.
	Health and Safety Executive research shows that about 70 per cent. of all accidents at work are avoidable. They can be foreseen and we should work to avoid them. By placing a general duty on directors, with an added duty on directors of larger companies, the Bill will help to drive forward best practice. It will not radically change the present situation. At present, there is a voluntary code of practice and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, his Bill takes points 2 and 5 of the code and makes them mandatory on industry. That will drive forward best practice. It will help to focus minds and ensure that we get to grips with preventable accidents.
	When we remember that 70 per cent. of workplace accidents are foreseeable, it calls into question the idea that has arisen of late that we have a compensation culture, because if there really was one, the courts would be weighed down by the number of claims. In fact, people in industry in general, and especially trade unions, take a much more reasonable approach to health and safety.
	It is important that we deal with some of the devastating failures. We heard from my hon. Friend about the number of accidents: one death for every day of the year. An enormous number of people are killed at work. About 83 people die every week from being exposed to substances that cause respiratory disease or mesothelioma cancer. That is an enormous number. As I mentioned in my intervention, asbestos or exposure to asbestos is likely to cause 186,000 deaths between 2000 and 2050. Unfortunately, there is little that we can do about that, because that bitter legacy is already with us, but we need to consider a treatment and care strategy for people who have been exposed to asbestos, and the Bill could have a connection to that. I hope that Health Ministers will think in those terms. We cannot avoid that legacy, but we can deal with it and make things better for its victims. Such a strategy for mesothelioma sufferers is enormously important for the future. By focusing on the improvements that need to be made, the Bill will connect with that issue.
	Although the 1974 Act had certain benefits, it is estimated that, in the 30 years since it was introduced, some 10,000 people have been killed at work and 1.3 million have suffered major injuries, including amputations and crippling back injuries. That has placed an immense burden on the community. That is why business is supporting this Bill. Members who sit on the Work and Pensions Committee say that the CBI is favourable to such legislation because it recognises that those 1.3 million major injuries and 10,000 deaths impose an enormous burden, as do the number of people who have lesser injuries but tend to be off work for long periods of time. It is estimated that 38 million days a year are lost, at a cost to industry of £11 billion. Business recognises that we need to do something to revitalise health and safety to get to grips with those figures and energise industry in such a way that productivity increases. Those lost working days impose burdens not only on the community but on industry.
	During that period since 1974, only 322 directors have been prosecuted, and of those only two were disqualified for health and safety offences. The Bill would take a reasonable approach to the way in which we work with industry to achieve the results that we want. It is clear that the voluntary principle that was imported into the current legislation from the Robens report is no longer working. Since 2001, when the voluntary code was introduced by the Health and Safety Commission, accidents at work started to increase in certain industries such as construction, where last year deaths at work rose by 4 per cent. and serious injuries by 9 per cent.

Michael Clapham: They were indeed. The embracing legislation of the time was the Mines and Quarries Act 1965, which placed duties all the way down the line, right to the coal face. What was interesting was how production was arranged so that safety was a major part of the process. On each coal face, before the administration pact that came in the 1980s and 1990s, a deputy had responsibility for safety and an overman, or under-manager as they later became, had the duty of production. The one with the duty for safety had the overruling duty under the Mines and Quarries Act. The deputy responsible for safety could stop the production process if he thought that lives were being put in danger by the way in which the work was proceeding. There were duties all the way down the line, right down to the individual, just as individuals have duties under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. All that worked well throughout the mining industry and it provides a model for how directors' duties in large companies might work.
	On the health and safety information director, who would work in large companies, the Bill says that he would have the responsibility
	"to inform the other directors, not less than four times a year, of . . . how the companies activities are affecting the health and safety of its employees and of other persons not in the company's employment".
	We could, then, use the structure I referred to—the regular meetings of the consultative committee under British Coal that resulted in the annual report. Those meetings might have happened more than four times a year, and information, through the minutes of the meetings, was distributed down the line. That model fits well with what we are talking about in terms of the duties of the health and safety information director.
	Duties other than those relating to employees are important, too. It will be recalled that companies such as Turner and Newell manufactured various things using asbestos. People who lived around the factories were subjected to emissions of substances from the factories to the extent that, we now know, they picked up asbestos-derived diseases, such as various types of respiratory problem and cancers. Indeed, women who washed their husbands' clothes that had asbestos dust in them later picked up cancers, too. We must consider that. The Bill gives an opportunity to focus directors' attention on how they would consider such matters and protect the public living near a factory. That would be an enormous step forward, I am sure we would agree across the piece.
	Indeed, my friend, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) may be encouraged to support the Bill. I had not realised until this debate that he was responsible for the legislation relating to Piper Alpha, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central said, resulted in our getting to grips with that issue. It was good legislation, and I am sure that input from the right hon. Gentleman, if we can encourage him to give it, would result in the Bill's being much more—shall we say—considerate of other factors, but which would still be appropriate. I hope that we can encourage him to come on board. I think he may well be so encouraged, but we shall hear later whether that is so.
	Some of the case studies that have been referred to are alarming. The briefs on the Bill refer to a large number, but I want to make the House aware of just two, which I think the legislation would let us get to grips with. In the first, a maintenance worker fell to his death through a roof. All that he had to work with was safety boards; he did not have a harness. The Health and Safety Executive held an inquiry after the death and found that the company involved had been warned by an inspector about carrying out high-risk roof work without enough safety measures. The company was found guilty on two health and safety offences. No director was convicted of manslaughter, but in a way, that is what that case was. The directors had a warning, and it was foreseeable that an accident of that type could happen. They ignored the warnings and they were not complying with legislation. But the legislation did not have the force that the Bill would have, and the directors ignored it with the result that a person at work lost his life.
	The case studies also refer to two steeplejacks killed by a ball of fire while they were working inside an industrial chimney. Again, the company had been warned that that was likely to happen. In that case, the company was fined just £2,000. Two men were killed in the chimney, but the company was fined £2,000. No company director was convicted of manslaughter.
	The Bill does not seek to be vengeful. It is about working with industry. Many trade unions support it, as does the Confederation of British Industry. Small and medium-sized businesses would get many benefits from it. We are seeing the development of a network of industrial advisers being built up around the country. There is an advice network in Liverpool and another in Sheffield. I understand that there are five advice centres. Indeed, a reception was held in Westminster only a fortnight ago to welcome some of the work that the network does. The network will become extremely important in working with small and medium-sized enterprises if the Bill becomes law.
	In conclusion, I believe that the Bill will bring about improvements, and industry generally welcomes it. The Bill will reinvigorate health and safety and protect people at work.

David Crausby: When the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 became law, I was a young shop steward working in the engineering industry. It was a good piece of legislation, and my recollection is that many employers found themselves close to panic because the perception was that people responsible for unsafe working practices that led to injury and death could go to prison. Management reacted positively, in the main, in those early days of the Act by concentrating their minds on health and safety, and as a result, there were real and substantial improvements to health and safety standards, with untold workers lives and limbs saved.
	Before the 1974 Act, the industrial scene could often be described as a nightmare, with the most horrific and dangerous practices commonplace. There were no general duties, and if something was not specified in the Factory Acts, workers and employers did pretty well what they chose to do. The fear of personal prosecution made a fantastic difference, but 30 years have now passed, and the reality has been somewhat different, with the prisons not exactly full of managers and supervisors.
	The truth is that tiny numbers of people have been prosecuted and convicted, and some of the fines imposed have been pathetic. The higher up the promotional ladder people go, the safer they get from prosecution, when the very opposite should be the case. The result is that the industrial establishment has become relaxed, those in it have felt increasingly secure from prosecution, so there is now a clear and urgent need to apply their minds again. Company directors and employers are, of course, not eager to hurt their employees, but the pressures of work and profitability often take precedence. They must never be allowed to do so.
	Many years ago, I worked as a works convener in an engineering company that machined a material containing asbestos. There was no indication in the material's name that the substance was in any way dangerous. The men who processed it did so in ignorance, with no protection. There were no masks or extraction. They were sometimes covered from head to toe in the powder, which they washed off at the end of the day. They then took their clothes home and allowed their wives to wash them. They even blew the powder off their machines with compressed air and scattered it around the machine shop for everyone else to share.
	When it came to my attention that the material could be dangerous, I quite properly contacted the factory inspector, who visited and insisted on extraction and respiratory equipment. The works manager was not at all pleased, to say the least. He considered it an inconvenience, but was forced reluctantly to comply. A short time later, he was moved to another factory some miles away in another town. The process of machining the asbestos material went with him.
	I lost contact with the process, but some years later I learned to my surprise that the other factory was manufacturing the product without safety measures. The factory inspector came in again and imposed the same safety procedures. There was no prosecution. The manager did not even get his knuckles wrapped. He fully understood the dangers, yet he kept his mouth shut and chose to put his productivity levels before his employees' safety, because for him, masks and extraction were too much trouble.
	This was a man who went to church every Sunday, and in the eyes of the village community, he was a decent, God-fearing man. In my eyes he was a villain who should have gone to prison because what he did knowingly was as bad as, if not worse than, someone driving a car while blind drunk. He simply had no time for health and safety. He knew that nothing in the law could touch him. He was fully aware that the hidden killer—asbestos—was entering his workers' lungs and that it would take years to show itself. The man has since retired and died, but the men he harmed may have yet to die before their time as a result of what is, in my view, his criminal neglect. The truth is that no one will ever be brought to justice for their deaths.
	I am sorry to say that that man's behaviour has been replicated over the years across our industrial scene. Too many men and women to mention have suffered and died without complaint. Middle management is often under so much pressure to produce that they are forced to turn a blind eye to health and safety, and I am afraid that some company directors allow them to get on with it. So when the Bill introduces duties on directors to act in the interests of health and safety, I say, "And about time, too." No one else should be allowed to suffer without redress. If the responsibilities contained in this proposed legislation had been in effect when we were machining that asbestos, I am confident that it would have been a different story, because the safety standards would have been transferred with the work.
	To be fair, my experience of company directors and senior management is that they have no desire whatsoever to put their employees at risk, but the problems often lie lower down the managerial chain. Legislation that puts a clear duty on individual directors by insisting on good standards and good systems is bound to apply their minds to health and safety issues, and as such it can only do good.
	The manager in my story who put production before safety was wrong in both moral and financial terms. As has been emphasised, it is simply not good business in the long term to run an unhealthy and unsafe workplace. The loss of productivity alone through sickness and absence, in addition to the poor morale that inevitably runs throughout a work force who are treated like cannon fodder, more than compensates for the small short-term gains of the unsafe working practices that kill and maim so many people.
	This is a good Bill; it is an excellent Bill which is long overdue. My hon. Friend can be proud of this piece of legislation and should be congratulated on his work. I urge the House to support him.

John MacDougall: Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that given the number of Members of Parliament who hold directorships, a decision today would send an important message of leadership in support of the Bill?

Tim Boswell: The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) is to be commended on introducing his Bill to the House, and all hon. Members who have participated in today's debate, no doubt well informed by the extensive and generous briefing that we have received, have done so in a thoughtful and constructive way. That is perhaps the most important outcome, particularly in view of what the Minister has just said, which I am sure will come as a disappointment to the hon. Gentleman.
	I understand the Minister's doubts. I notice that they have become rather more intense in recent years, and that there has been a certain backing and filling in the Government's position. But as far as I and I hope all hon. Members are concerned, the more of a political consensus we can get on health and safety matters and the less we bat it from side to side, the happier we shall be, and the more constructive the outcome, as has been evident today.
	I go back to the remarks of the Bill's promoter at the beginning of the debate when he detailed the deaths and serious injuries that have occurred at work and the fact that this measure is about individuals and their families and successors, sadly. Almost all of us as constituency Members of Parliament, and, dare I say, quite a number of us as individuals, including myself, have had some experience of accidents to close members of our families and in having to handle the outcome of such situations.
	I suppose it would be fair to say that the immediate need, beyond the period of grief, is to look at the issue of redress, including financial compensation—not that that is always well handled, or embraced in the Bill. There is, as has been said from a number of points of view, a need to try to get at the facts of what happened—a lot of people strongly want to do that—and sometimes legal process, even if it is designed to discover those facts, actually operates against that ready disclosure. People are not ready to put their hand up and say that they were wrong; it has to be dragged out of them.
	Beyond that, I would simply say that in my experience many more constituents are interested in using the sad experience of their bereavement or loss for positive ends, to say that it should not happen again, than in punishing those who are guilty. It will vary, and perhaps it is right that people should have the privilege of taking their own view on it, but what we are concerned about here is to learn from what happened and see whether we can bring about an improvement.
	Conservative Members are interested in any proposals that can be shown to make a significant contribution to improving health and safety at work. I am a small employer, although not a remunerated director, and I share that view. I have already made the point to the House that there is a strong business case, as a good employer, for doing that.
	The House will know that ever since the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, the obligation to address these issues has fallen equally on employers and employees in industry, and that is right. Good safety and good working practices should be the mutual responsibility of all those engaged in industry. Beyond that, there is an expectation that as experience of what is safe and what is not develops, as technology improves and new sensors, new warnings and new smart systems can be introduced, and as a new and safer generation of machines comes along, we should, collectively, generally be able to show a better record than we have in the past, and indeed we need to do so.
	As the Minister of State has reminded the House, however, this has generally been the case in the United Kingdom. British industry has one of the best safety records among members of the European Union, and it is possible to go not too far beyond the channel to find cases where compliance and attitude are perhaps less intense. Of course, in saying that, I do not want to be caricatured as in any sense saying that we can be complacent. One death is still one too many, and we all want to struggle to see how we can effectively improve the situation.
	I shall pick out two themes that have emerged from the debate. In a way they are rather antagonistic, as the details of legislation always are. The first theme is the developing nature of what has to be done in safety. I will except for the moment wider issues of occupational health, in which the Minister of State and the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) know that I am interested. There is an important issue about occupational health as well, but in this debate we are primarily dealing with the accident situation. I think that we are moving towards a more modern approach to accidents.
	When I first came on the scene—I grew up on a farm; it is a dangerous industry—legislation introduced guards, in what was seen as a passive exercise to stop people doing silly things near moving machinery. That was in a sense rather simple, because either the guard was there or it was not; somebody had taken it off when they should not have done, or it had never been fitted in the first place. Now it is all more complicated.
	In a separate context it so happens that I have recently taken one of the officers' positions in the recently established—rather late in the day, perhaps—all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, which had its inaugural meeting earlier this week. We were addressed rather compellingly by the chief medical officer. He spoke about patient safety in the NHS and made the point—I do not have the exact text of what he said—that we were moving towards a system of not so much operational safety in which one takes note of individual incidents, but of ensuring that systems are safe using a procedure of interlocking checks and balances. That is entirely sensible and consistent with what goes on in modern industry.
	The second underlying theme of our debate is that we are all anxious to try to pin blame, if that is the most appropriate term, on those responsible for incidents. As several hon. Members have made clear, the problem is complex because there are different places where responsibility could operate, ranging from the workplace itself right up to board level, which is where the hon. Member for Jarrow argues that it should lie.
	As an employer, I know that there is always a little disquiet when one comes away from the operational situation. As I am in Parliament, obviously I am not on my farm today. I have a well trained staff of one, who has the necessary certification to apply agrochemicals and perform other procedures. I am confident, and need to be confident, that such procedures would be carried out properly and safely in my absence. Nevertheless, people sometimes do things wrong and disregard instructions, so central management might feel unable to control that situation, even if good safeguards were in place. I think that that problem lies behind the disquiet that is sometimes expressed in terms of scapegoating or corporate manslaughter. People say, "We'll get them", but we are never quite sure who they are.
	It is clearly wrong for employers just to walk away from their responsibilities saying, "It doesn't matter; we're not interested," and the Minister referred to that in her speech. However, it is impossible to achieve some things at board level, so it is perhaps unreasonable to penalise people who have done their best to put safe systems in place. We must deal with a difficult set of legal issues. Perhaps mercifully we have not heard too many legal contributions to the debate—I am not a lawyer, anyway—but we would have to try to work out where blame should lie. It would perhaps be more constructive to say that a common obligation exists and that that must be examined collectively by industry.
	Let me turn to the Bill itself. It would amend the Companies Act 1985 and impose specific duties on people in their capacity as company directors. I do not think that a distinction has been made sufficiently clearly between executive and non-executive directors. Executive directors are likely to be employed by their companies, so they have health and safety duties as employees. Their companies will also have general health and safety duties. From my lay interest in law, I suspect that if one looks down the fiduciary duties of company directors under common law, one could get the whisper of an idea—a judge could run further with this—that directors already have a duty not to walk away from the interest of their employees. Perhaps that is a matter for later discussion.
	As I have suggested, there is a worry that non-executive directors who do not have day-to-day responsibility for a company might find themselves put at risk by something over which they have no direct control. I can conceive of circumstances in which the negligence of a non-executive director could have contributed to a failure in safety, although I do not have a specific case in mind. However, I would be surprised if that was the norm. It falls to the promoter of the Bill and his colleagues to comment on that, including my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Clarke), who spoke effectively on the matter and, indeed, my neighbour on the other side of my constituency, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who is a sponsor of the Bill.
	To be fair, I think that today we have largely avoided promoting a culture in which the response to anything that goes wrong—things do go wrong from time to time—is to press the blame button automatically and find someone to collar without examining the underlying causes of an incident. It is at that point that concerns arise about the public sector, as well as wider issues about corporate manslaughter. The right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) speculated about whether the permanent secretary or the Under-Secretary should do time for whatever went wrong. That is an interesting point, but whoever it was they would not be subject to the Companies Act 1985, at least not in that regard. However, they clearly have some general responsibility for the supervision of their operation.
	It is not clear, and the fairness is questionable, whether a duty should be imposed on private sector directors under the Companies Act which did not extend to their counterparts in the public sector. That is all the more true as evidence shows that some performance in the public sector—for example, the NHS, where there is no longer Crown immunity—is from time to time the most disappointing in the whole sphere of health and safety. The NHS employs many people and there are some difficult procedures. As some Members know, I have taken an interest in issues of latex allergy; indeed, the DWP has helpfully responded, for which I thank the Minister. There are also patient safety issues. Many things go wrong in the health service and I am not sure that locking up the permanent secretary at the Department of Health will actually stop them happening.
	There is a wider point on corporate manslaughter. If the Minister disappointed the House in her comments on the Bill this morning, she has equally disappointed the Labour party, given the manifesto it offered the electorate at the last general election. Will the Labour party be repeating its pledge on corporate manslaughter legislation? An underlying theme may be the reluctance of civil servants to assume responsibility, as well as some of the concerns about directors that the Minister expressed. As she knows, I share some of those concerns, although I understand the reason for the legitimate concerns of the supporters of the Bill.
	These issues are interesting. They matter to individuals, but more generally they affect public policy outcomes for our citizens. The overlap between corporate responsibility, issues of corporate manslaughter, where the blame should lie and how that should be reflected in legislation is complex. In an intervention, I mentioned as an example the relationship between constituent companies in groups of companies.
	I note that the Work and Pensions Committee suggested pre-legislative scrutiny. In a sense, the Bill is about pre-legislative scrutiny, but it is unlikely to reach a final conclusion, even with the eloquence of the hon. Member for Jarrow.
	In conclusion, I strongly advise the House against over-reliance on the measure as if it were a magic bullet for such a real problem. We cannot guarantee to prevent accidents through the Bill. I am not sure that we can reinforce the need to encourage and celebrate individual excellence, nor am I absolutely sure how much we can achieve through the Bill on any improvement in collective attitudes to safety, although we should all welcome that. However, the hon. Gentleman has performed a service to the House by putting the issue on the table. Like the Minister, I shall not try to frustrate him in his efforts to get the Bill into Committee.

Eric Forth: I do not need to say very much because I agree almost entirely with what was said by the Minister and by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), a position that usually embarrasses me but to which I am happy to admit on this occasion. Although, of course, I acknowledge the motivation and sincerity of the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) and his friends in bringing the Bill to the House, I take the view, as those who attend regularly on Fridays will know—unfortunately, I do not see many of them in the Chamber today—that we must be even more careful with private Members' Bills than with Government Bills. That is simply because private Members' Bills often represent the dreams of this or that group and the proper aspirations of good-minded people, but are not necessarily very well thought through. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's Bill is an example of that and that we would be foolish to rush into supporting it, especially given that the Government have indicated that they are seriously considering the matter in a much broader context.
	I will seek to divide the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if only to test the amount of support that the Bill really has. I come here every Friday for private Member's Bills—I am that sort of person—and often listen to colleagues whom I have never seen before, and will probably never see again, arguing for a Bill that they think the most important thing that we can consider. They always say, as the hon. Gentleman did today, "There is huge support for this Bill inside and outside the House, and it has cross-party support from all these Members who have sponsored it." Then I look around, ever optimistic, to see where they are. All we ask them to do, as Members of Parliament elected to legislate, is to turn up on one Friday of the year to physically show their support for a Bill. That is not an awful lot to ask. Today we will see just how much support there is for this Bill in the very real sense of how many Members are here to demonstrate in the Lobby that they believe that it should proceed further.
	I have expressed my reservations in a couple of interventions and need not rehearse them at this stage—I am anxious that my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who has the next debate, should have an opportunity to get it started after we have our little Division—but I have a couple more points to make.
	Sadly, the Bill is excessively narrowly focused on the private sector, and some people could think it almost vindictive. In picking out only directors of private companies, it appears to ignore other potential areas of difficulty. That was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry and other hon. Members. If we are to proceed along this track, I would much prefer to look more broadly at the parallel responsibilities in the public sector, where, after all, a very large number of people work, often in very hazardous conditions. We should also pause to consider whether legislation of this kind should focus so narrowly on directors alone. I believe that responsibility for health and safety rests at every level in every organisation, large and small, and that we should head in that direction instead of merely singling out directors.
	The Minister was too modest, as always, to quote herself to the House, so I shall do it for her. The Work and Pensions Committee has frequently been mentioned, and I want to put on the record what she told it in evidence last May, which very much reflects my view:
	"The evidence . . . has shown that directors are giving leadership and direction, that increasingly companies are directing health and safety at board level, and that better guidance to companies is what is needed rather than legislation or further regulation. Des Browne was advised by the Commission"—
	that is, the Health and Safety Commission—
	"in January of this year that new legislation was not needed as a result of that and he, therefore, accepted that advice."
	That is a very balanced view. The Minister has said that she is participating in the process and has instructed that an ongoing review be conducted by the end of this year.
	This may sound odd coming from me—it will look all right if it is quoted in context, but pretty peculiar if not—but I believe that Government legislation has a better chance of being more carefully examined, more carefully structured and having resulted from broader consultation and consideration than is necessarily possible for private Members' Bills. For that reason, I come here when private Member's Bills are considered to try to make sure that we look more carefully at them than we able to do for Government Bills. All in all, I am content with what the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry have said, but nervous about the Bill and the way in which it seeks to take us. I shall therefore seek to divide the House in order to assess the real support for the Bill.

It appearing on the report of the Division that 40 Members were not present, Mr. Deputy Speaker declared that the Question was not decided, and the business under consideration stood over until the next sitting of the House.

Paul Beresford: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	I start by thanking the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins) and his considerable team of officials, who will be seen filing in at any moment. Perhaps it is some credit to me that I have managed to take those who normally occupy about a quarter of a floor of the Home Office from their desks, especially at lunch time.
	The second reason to thank the Minister is that the long title would have to be adjusted if the Bill proceeded to Committee, as he pointed out. The long title refers to section 67 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, which has been repealed. That section, which previously made provision for the risk assessment of sexual and violent offenders, is repealed by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, with effect from April 2004. There is now a matching provision, involving a slightly broader range of organisations, in section 325 of the 2003 Act.
	I shall read out a statement from the Metropolitan police practitioners—the men and ladies who have to carry the task out—that is included in the Library's research paper:
	"This is an extremely important tool that will allow police and partners to assess and manage effectively those people on the sex offenders' register.
	The majority of offenders comply with the registration requirements in terms of notifying police of their address (97 per cent.). There are however no real means of confirming that they physically reside at the address given, or assessing whether they are involved in offender behaviour without using extremely intrusive and resource intensive methods. A visit to the address at a reasonable time will allow us to perform some of the functions already incumbent on us through existing legislation.
	The power will also allow us to police restriction orders imposed by courts and prevent the current problem of offenders refusing to speak to police during their period of registration.
	In the main this will not affect those offenders who recognise the risk that they pose or have posed to the public. It will however provide us with legislative support to manage those that currently pose a risk and do not wish to stop."
	To be fair, there follows a quotation from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which I shall address and on which I am sure the Minister will rely in replying.
	It is worth pointing out that this is a fairly grim subject—indeed, I have yet to come across a subject that has cleared the House quite so quickly. When court cases involving such events are reported in the papers, one can watch people reading turn the page quickly, because the issue is unpleasant and the criminals are not particularly delectable individuals. So I need to explain my thinking and background.
	One of the advantages of being a Back Bencher is that one can go on various schemes. I went on the police and parliamentary scheme with the Met police. Much of what I saw was intellectually testing and fascinating. I spent one day, however, with the Met's paedophile unit. At that stage the gentleman in charge was Detective Chief Inspector Dave Marshall, who was followed by Detective Chief Inspector Matt Sarti, with whom I have worked since, as well as their equivalents in some other police forces, particularly Surrey police.
	I was shocked at what I saw. The public have no understanding of the individuals with whom policemen and women are dealing or of what they do to children. I am not talking about a few individuals. The police conservatively estimated that there were 230,000 active paedophiles in this country two or three years ago. One only has to look at the information on news broadcasts today to recognise that that is probably an underestimate. Even at that level, however, it is equivalent to one paedophile for every street in this country.
	The other staggering statistic that I picked up from the police and the research that I have done is that 10 to 20 per cent. of those individuals are women. According to one or two other sources, the proportion is perhaps even higher than that. Rose West is an obvious example, but there are many others.
	It was with that in mind that I decided to try to help the police to do the job that we expect of them. I am not alone in that. A Conservative Government started the activity, which has been followed up by other Governments. There has been considerable co-operation, and a few hon. Members on both sides of the House keep pushing the issue so that we can give the police the opportunity to carry out their task.
	We need to understand the background of the individuals involved. Apart from the monstrous depravity of their crimes, one of the fascinating and horrifying things about paedophiles—those who commit sexual offences against children—is that not only do they frequently have a single-minded drive to have sex with children, but they have a number of other characteristics, which in some ways is helpful to the police. First, they have a need to collect data and memorabilia associated with their activities. In the early days, that would have been photographs on a box Brownie or some old 8 mm films. They keep clothes, especially of their victims, and records—perhaps written or verbal on tapes—of their grooming activities. Many of them collect vast amounts of literature, some of which is inexplicable until we listen and talk to them. For example, many collect Mothercare catalogues.
	The video age came along, so they joined that. With great glee, they swap, spread and record their physical activities on videos. Latterly, with the digital age, they have moved into photographs stored on computers, including digital storage in the form of CD-ROMs, DVDs and storage pens. Even more worrying is the recent trend to use the internet to store remotely.
	Any of those listening to the news today would have picked up concerns about the internet in particular. It is a fantastic instrument. I would be lost without it, but equally, it is utilised by paedophiles, partly for their own stimulation, partly for stimulating others, partly to reassure themselves that they are not alone, and partly to stimulate their feeling that what they are doing is right and the rest of us are wrong.
	It is a regular occurrence for them to sell photographs and information over the internet. Everyone is increasingly aware of that. By sale, I do not necessarily mean a financial transaction, but an exchange of photographs. For them to join a gang or ring that is circulating photographs, frequently the requirement is to provide a new as yet unseen photograph, which means yet another child abused to provide that. One of the advantages from the police point of view is that some of those activities leave traces that can now be detected on computers. Data, either actual or otherwise, is available even if it is encrypted. That gives the police the opportunity to follow those individuals.
	The second characteristic is that those monsters are not what many people think of as standard monsters. They are not old men in dirty macs. Many of them are extremely intelligent, and highly adept at grooming children, if not adults. Many of them, as part of their grooming of children, will keep toys, comics and sweets attractive to children. Those are significant details sitting in their homes for the police, if only they could get in.
	Nowadays, much of the grooming takes place on the internet. When the police managed to get access, after conviction, to the computer of an individual who has recently been convicted and who I understand is now in jail, he was discovered to have been simultaneously grooming 58 British children with the ultimate intention of sexually abusing them.
	The third characteristic worth mentioning is that almost without exception, paedophiles are the most adept liars. A senior defence barrister, whom I will not name, who was part of the team defending Rose West and has defended a number of paedophiles, said to me—I was surprised how vehemently upset she was—that paedophiles were the most untrustworthy, two-faced, lying, slippery individuals that she had ever had to deal with. She said that they made the worst fraudster whom she has ever had to defend look comparatively straight. That surprised me, because she was supposed to be on their side—at least in court.
	The previous Conservative Government and this Government, aided and abetted by a number of Members on both sides of the House, have over the past few years greatly strengthened the law on sentencing paedophiles. Part 1 of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 imposed a requirement for convicted sexual offenders to notify the police of their names and addresses and any change of details, to ensure that the information on the sexual offenders list on the national computer was up to date.
	The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 amended the law in relation to sexual offenders by placing a duty on chief officers of police and probation officers to establish arrangements for assessing and managing the risks posed by sexual and violent offenders. That is key to what I am asking for today. When this subject comes up in the consideration of various Bills in Committee, there is very close agreement between the Opposition and the Government; there are fine points around the edges, and I guess that I am pushing one of those, but it was the Government's intention, as well as that of just about everybody else in the House, that there be an effective and consistent public protection arrangement in every police and probation area, following national guidance but implemented locally, to suit local conditions and needs. I have certainly found that arrangements throughout the country have varied. The problems that I am trying to address apply more to the Met than they do to, say, Surrey police, although they tell me that the difficulties that I am trying to address are beginning to arise there, too.
	Linked to the police and the probation service are a number of statutory and voluntary agents that have a role to play. The Conservative Government recognised that many of the offenders, particularly predatory paedophiles, had a long history that clearly indicated their propensity to reoffend. That meant that if society, represented by the courts, was prepared to allow those individuals to be released, placing them on the sexual offenders list and putting on the police a duty to risk-assess would in effect be an extension of the original sentence.
	The annual requirement that offenders should confirm the details with the police and that the police should be able to check from prints and take photographs at all notifications is important, but at the moment, that is done in person at the police station by the individual on the list. It is left to the police to check. The statement from ACPO that I mentioned says that some 97 per cent. of those on the list co-operate—but they co-operate to the limited degree required, which if they are difficult, does not allow for the police to risk-assess. That 97 per cent. is a proportion of the whole sex offenders list, and of course, not all the offenders on that list are paedophiles.

Tim Boswell: The House owes a debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), both for introducing this Bill and—as the Minister has already generously acknowledged—for the undoubted body of expertise that my hon. Friend has developed in this area. It is for most of us, certainly for me, an area of which we have a passing knowledge. However, much of what we read is in somewhat tetchy constituency correspondence or in the pages of tabloid newspapers, and that does not always make for the most rounded of debates. It is important for us to take issues that arouse anger and fear, and provoke the universal wish to protect children, and put them into a manageable and acceptable body of legislation. We should not respond to the demands of the moment, but try to produce something that works.
	I have four brief comments on my hon. Friend's speech. First, I wish to thank him for the reasonable point that he made about risk assessment. I am comparatively unfamiliar with the legal machinery in that regard, although in my days on my party's home affairs team I recall subbing for a colleague on an order connected with the sexual offences legislation. I had assumed that the main function of the sex offenders register was the passive one of satisfying the general public that the police knew where offenders were. As the Minister will know, that answers to a widespread public demand. My hon. Friend has informed the House of a more active element to that risk management. If that is to take place in any reasonable way, it has to do so on the basis of facts. As he told the House, the majority of convicted offenders comply with the rules. That is reassuring, and I have no difficulty with the assurances given by the Minister and in the briefing that is available to Members on this Bill about tightening matters up. Nevertheless, in some situations—graphically described by my hon. Friend—sex offenders do the very minimum required under the law or flout the law in relation to allowing the police to carry out a risk assessment. That is unacceptable, because we are asking the police to do a job without giving them the tools to do it.
	My second point relates to article 8 of the human rights convention. For the avoidance of doubt, I can tell the Minister that I am one of the founder members of the new Conservative human rights group. I am pleased that we have got round to setting that up, and it is a reflection partly of a growing interest in such matters on this side of the House, for reasons that I need not expand, and partly of the need not to see such matters as subject to party political controversy, left or right. My membership is reinforced by the fact that one of my daughters works for the Government legal service as a specialist in human rights. If I feel the need to say that that is not a contradiction in terms, the Minister will understand why. Issues of human rights matter terribly to us, as they have mattered in this House for many centuries. We need to get the balance right, but we now have a conflict between, on the one hand, the evidence that my hon. Friend has brought to the House on the Met and, on the other, ACPO. I should point out that I know well the chief executive of ACPO, Chris Fox, because he was the chief constable in Northamptonshire before his welcome appointment to ACPO.
	I shall not go into the genesis of ACPO's view, at which level the decision was taken and whether it was well advised. There is a clear clash of views. However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the Government have taken other powers—for reasons that may or may not be defensible, but which we need not debate today—that are far more sweeping in their threat to the traditional liberties of the subject than the question of the right of access to the premises of convicted sex offenders who have registered their presence.
	To the impressive list given by my hon. Friend, I add my personal experience, which I have shared with the House before. About six weeks ago, while driving my car, I was pulled over by a group of uniformed police officers who said that they were from the Ministry of Defence and wished to search my car under the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000. They did so perfectly correctly and gave me a chit for doing so. There was no question of a prior moving traffic offence, suspicion or anything else. It was a peremptory challenge. If that is justified in relation to, I hope, an innocent citizen, equally the sort of intervention proposed in the Bill is as well.
	It would be desirable, although it may or may not be possible in practice, on this occasion or perhaps at a later stage, for these issues to be examined again in Committee, and in detail, and for the difference between the Metropolitan police and ACPO to be bottomed out. We could then ascertain whether there were any other constraints in the interest of human rights that should be imposed within the proposals. For example, the use of the evidence obtained needs to be more tightly conditioned, that it should be for a limited period, or whatever. These are essentially Committee points.
	If we ask the Met or any other police force to carry out this work, we need to give them the tools to do it in relation to risk assessment. There are occasions when it is proper—I use the word carefully—to derogate the human rights of the individual. We should never do that lightly. We should not do it beyond what is proportionate. It seems to me, however, that such an approach may be appropriate in this instance.
	I conclude my remarks by setting out two other considerations. First, much of this, but not all of it, for the reasons that my hon. Friend and I have given, is about public reassurance. There is a feeling that someone is keeping tabs on these extremely undesirable, unpleasant and sometimes devious individuals. I think that that is what the general public want. They would take it ill if they were to become conscious—I do not say that this is the case, I am saying that if it became the case or, arguably, one or two causes célèbres might lead people to think that it was the case—that the sex offenders register was not working. As I have said, I am not suggesting that that is happening and I do not wish to alarm people. Clearly, it is no good—although it is a thing that successive Governments have done—just to do something and then say, "We have done it." The process must be continued to make sure that it remains viable and fit for purpose. My hon. Friend is entirely right in bringing forward the consideration.
	There is another element that is the point on which I wish to close. There is no doubt that there is a strong sense of public anger and concern about paedophiles. That, in a sense, needs to be managed. The last thing that any of us in the Chamber would want is irregular action, vigilantes and violence—I record the point in the interest of their civil liberties, too—in relation to those whose convictions have been spent. Indeed, these people may even have undergone successful remedial treatment for their condition. We do not want such violence to arise.
	I say to the Minister in all seriousness—I think that this is entirely consistent with the case put forward by my hon. Friend—that if public worry boils over, that will have consequences that we do not wish to see. It is extremely important, of course, that Ministers are cautious in assuming powers beyond those that they feel comfortable with or that they consider are justified, let alone powers that merely look good in a press release. However, it is essential that they have the powers that they need and that the sex offenders register can do the job that it is intended to do.
	I believe that my hon. Friend, with his undoubted expertise, has made a constructive suggestion. It is worth consideration now, in Committee or on a subsequent occasion. I hope and feel that the Minister will not wish to dismiss it lightly.

Paul Goggins: I assure the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) that I would never dismiss this issue lightly and I believe that the whole House shares a deep concern to ensure that our laws, and the practices of our law enforcement agencies and other agencies, are effective in this area.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). He and I have had a number of discussions in this Chamber, in Committee and elsewhere on the issues that he raised today and it is perhaps typical of him that, having won a prominent position in the ballot for private Members' business, he chose this subject above any other to bring to the attention of the House in an attempt, in his view, to strengthen the law, although I hope that in my remarks today he will be reassured that we believe that the law is sufficient to provide effective action against the concerns that he highlights. Of course, it is right that the House rigorously and regularly reviews legislation in this area.
	As the hon. Gentleman explained, the Bill would provide the police with a specific new power to enter and search the homes of registered sex offenders who have been convicted of sexual offices against children under 16 and he specifically highlighted that that was the group on which he wanted to focus. I freely acknowledge that he has so focused the Bill.
	The hon. Gentleman made a similar proposal during our consideration of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and, more recently, he tabled amendments to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. He is certainly a persistent offender in this House, and he continues to pursue these issues with great vigour. I fully appreciate that he has given considerable thought to these issues and gone to considerable lengths, not least outside the House, to listen to those who operate on the front line of public protection in this area, so that whenever he speaks it is with great authority. It is clear from the way in which he has drafted the Bill that he continues to review and refine his views in this area.

Paul Goggins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for underlining the fact that I am well advised in this area by officials from the Home Office, who share his and my commitment to improving legislation and effective law enforcement in this area, and I know that he freely pays tribute to them.
	I cannot give the hon. Gentleman too much satisfaction on his intervention, although his speech today caused me to redouble my commitment to home in on those few people who may be particularly difficult to police. If they are part of the 3 per cent., we know that the law enforcement agencies will be doing everything possible to make sure that they comply with the law, and that if they do not, that they face the penalties. If he is raising issues about a small number of people in the 97 per cent. who do comply with registration requirements, I will listen carefully to the law enforcement agencies and their concerns about that. I certainly commit myself and the Government to for ever being vigilant about those few people who might seek to manipulate and flout the requirements of the law in the way that he suggests, although I cannot give him any comfort in relation to legislation going through the House.
	In the spirit of further warm words, let me tell the House that the hon. Gentleman has been a member of the taskforce on child protection on the internet. It has been my privilege to chair that taskforce during the almost two years that I have carried my current responsibilities. In addition to being an active member of that taskforce, he was personally involved in helping to frame the grooming offence that we were able to initiate through the Sexual Offences Act 2003. That was a major step forward, which is now enshrined in legislation. From 1 May last year, it has been a new offence for which people can be taken to court, convicted and face imprisonment for up to 10 years. It is perhaps rare in the House that Government are seen to be too meek and mild in this area. Our initial proposal for punishment for the grooming offence was up to seven years' imprisonment, but after urgings from all sides of the House in Committee and on the Floor, we increased that penalty to a maximum of 10 years and we felt on the whole that that reflected the seriousness of the new offence.
	The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is a grim issue, but we cannot ignore it. It is an issue that we have to stare in the face and deal with and I believe that, because of the work of the taskforce on child protection on the internet, we have become a world leader in being able to deal with it. Indeed, on 26 January 2005 the Virtual Global Taskforce was launched. This is a new form of global co-operation between law enforcement in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and Australia, where law enforcement is beginning to work together on a global stage to ensure that those who seek out abusive images of children, and to make direct contact with individual children through the internet, will be policed, found and brought to justice.
	Through the work of a number of agencies, perhaps notably the Internet Watch Foundation, which has been established and funded by industry as a mark of its sense of social responsibility and commitment to self-regulation in this area, we have been able since 1997 to reduce the percentage of websites based in this country that host abusive images of children from some 17 per cent. of sites to less than 1 per cent. That is a remarkable achievement in a relatively short time, and shows that, by working together with the industry, with law enforcement, with academics and with children's charities, we can really make a difference in this very difficult area.
	The hon. Gentleman will be aware that not only did we give this matter consideration—at his prompting, of course—during the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, but the issue of police powers in relation to the entry and search of registered sex offenders' homes was considered by the original review of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 in 2001, and that review concluded that such a power was not necessary. The Government continue to agree with that conclusion. These are not one-off, ad hoc assessments. The original review of the 1997 Act formed that conclusion. We reaffirmed that conclusion during the passage of the 2003 Act. We have continued to look, but our assessment remains the same—that the powers proposed by the hon. Gentleman in his Bill are not necessary, and we can be vigilant in our policing of this area without them.
	I am simply not yet convinced that effective enforcement of the sex offenders register requires additional police powers over and above those already available. The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the staff, particularly the front-line police officers, who have to deal with this area, especially those who staff the paedophile unit and those who have to investigate and police the use of the internet and the use of child pornography. That is a heinous area for any human being to have to work in, so I am sure that the whole House will want to record its deep gratitude to the staff who investigate such cases. The public do not have a full picture of such work or an understanding of it—perhaps that is a good thing, in many ways—but the police do a fine job in that area and I pay tribute to them.
	The Association of Chief Police Officers continues to agree with our assessment that such a Bill is unnecessary. The hon. Gentleman suggested that there might be tension in the ranks between those who lead and those who do the hard slog on our streets and in our local communities. I have no doubt that the police will debate such tension among their own ranks. I am content with ACPO's strong and consistent advice that such legislation is unnecessary.
	Let us be clear about what the Bill would achieve. It would introduce a police power that would apply to offenders who were subject to the notification requirements—registered sex offenders—and had received a conviction for a sexual offence against a child under 16. As I said earlier, I acknowledge that he is focusing on that specific group of offenders. Those offenders would have notified their address in compliance with the notification requirements and would be living in the community. The Bill thus does not address people who have not complied with the notification requirements.
	All registered sex offenders must notify the police of their home address and inform them of any change to that. Such notification must now take place within three days under the more stringent regime introduced under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The hon. Member for Daventry alluded to the fact that there is sometimes a misunderstanding about the registration requirements for sex offenders. They are not in themselves an extension of an offender's punishment. An offender who commits a sexual offence against a child or adult is punished for that in the courts. If people commit serious sexual crimes, they rightly spend a long time in prison. However, the registration does not form part of that punishment. It is an administrative procedure to help our law enforcement agencies to manage the risk that those individuals might pose. It is important to make that distinction because unhelpful confusion can sometimes arise.

Paul Goggins: I shall address that matter later. People who are subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements, many of whom are registered sex offenders, are visited regularly by the police and the probation service because that is an aspect of the way in which the risk that they pose is managed. People who are on the sex offenders register are not ignored by our law enforcement agencies and others—quite the reverse is the case. The hon. Gentleman presses us to give the police the power, as part of their normal procedures, to enter the home of every single person who is subject to the registration requirements, but that would be a step too far. If there are grounds to believe that a person has committed further offences or that a person who should have registered has not done so, the police have sufficient powers to act. Making powers available to the police regarding those who are complying with the requirements and committing no further offences is a step too far.
	In addition to the requirement for offenders to register or change their address within three days, they must notify the police of any address at which they spend seven days or more in any 12-month period, if the police had not already been notified of that address. The seven-day period does not have to be consecutive; for example, if an offender spent every Saturday night at their parents' home they would have to notify that address. They might do that only once a week, but if it was 52 times a year it would exceed seven nights away, so they would have to notify the address to the police. There is a requirement not only to register their home address but also any address at which they spend a significant period.
	Under the Bill, a police officer could enter any such notified address—not only the home address but other addresses that might have been notified because the individual was spending more than seven nights there. The police officer could enter any of the notified addresses to ascertain whether the sex offender was there and could search the premises for information to assist the police, probation and prison services in managing the offender. The proposed section 129B makes it an offence with a maximum punishment of five years' imprisonment for the sex offender to obstruct the police officer in the exercise of those powers.
	There are two difficulties with that proposal. First, it would not be an offence under the Bill for another person to obstruct the police officer in the exercise of those powers. Obviously, if the Bill were to go into Committee, we could begin to get our heads around that type of detail. We shall have to see whether we get that far. Such details are important, however, because we need to get our legislation right.
	Secondly, it is likely that the offence of obstructing a police officer at section 89(2) of the Police Act 1996 would apply in such circumstances. For example, if a police officer needed to enter premises because he or she had grounds to believe that a registered sex offender was committing further offences or that somebody who should have registered had not done so, the officer would, quite properly, have the right to enter the property to investigate. If they were blocked in so doing, that would be an offence punishable under section 89(2). However, it would carry only up to one month's imprisonment or a level 3 fine, so there is a disconnection in the severity of punishment for the offence proposed by the hon. Gentleman and the existing offence of obstructing the police in the course of their duties. Those are two practical difficulties with the Bill as it stands, although I know that the hon. Gentleman would be generous enough to reflect further on them if we reached the point where we could discuss them in more detail.
	The Bill would give the police powers to enter and search any premises in England or Wales, with no need for even the slightest suspicion that the notification requirements had been breached, that any offence, sexual or otherwise, had actually been committed or that there was any risk to the public. The provisions would apply for any address that had been notified by a child sex offender. That gives rise to the issue of disproportionality.
	I was extremely interested to hear the hon. Member for Daventry announce to the House the creation of a new group in the Conservative party committed to the importance of human rights. He mentioned article 8. There was a challenge under article 8 to the effect that the sex offender registration requirements were disproportionate. However, when the case was brought and the test was made, the court agreed that the registration requirements were in fact proportionate to the type of risks that people pose. The Bill would, if successful, be subject to further challenge. It is arguable that it would add a disproportionate burden, in that people who might indeed have committed a serious offence but who were complying with the requirement to register, not committing further offences and trying to put their offence behind them and be law-abiding citizens, would still be subject to invasion of their home and private space, warranted only by the fact that they had been required to sign the register and give their details to the police. I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman's proposals would definitely lead to disproportionality, but we would run the risk of a claim to that effect.
	Taking all those issues into consideration, the question that the House needs to ask, and indeed to answer, is not whether the hon. Gentleman is well intentioned—there is no question but that he is; he continues to pursue these issues with great knowledge and vigour—but whether his new powers would be justified and proportionate in every case. It is arguable that they would be disproportionate and might expose us to further challenge that undermined the registration system, which is working very effectively at the moment. As the hon. Gentleman said himself, we have around 97 per cent. compliance with the registration requirements. If we compare that with some of the states in the United States of America, the difference is compelling. In some states, registration is as low as 30 per cent.—more than two thirds of their registrable sex offenders do not comply with the registration requirements. It is very important to get the balance right, and with 97 per cent. compliance I would argue that we have.

Paul Goggins: I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I will pay close attention to his remarks about the two dozen or so people whom officers in the Met police suspect are complying on the face of it but not in reality. In the case of the compliant 97 per cent., the police are not required to go to check the offender—the offender is required to go to the police. It is no longer enough for them to write a little note saying, "My name is Joe Bloggs and I live at 3 Smith street"—registration now involves a photograph, fingerprinting, and much closer scrutiny of the individual. There are clear requirements on people immediately to tell the police if they move house or reside, even occasionally, at another address. If they intend to travel outside this country for a period of three days or more, they must tell the police seven days beforehand. Wherever they are going, they have to ensure that the police know about it.
	Taking all those issues into consideration, we believe that the current system works, encourages close compliance, and is proportionate, and that it is therefore not challengeable under article 8.
	Sexual offending against children is an absolutely despicable crime. Hon. Members on both sides continue to make that absolutely clear as we join together in various ways to try to combat it. We all want a rigorous response to such crimes. We have made considerable changes in recent years to protect children and, indeed, all members of society from the risk that sex offenders pose. The hon. Member for Mole Valley himself has played a commendable and considerable role in many developments.
	In April, we will introduce a new sentence, arising from the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Where somebody has committed a serious sexual offence and has a history of that, or of violence, it will be open to the court to pass an indeterminate sentence for public protection, where a life sentence is not available. The individual will serve a certain tariff—perhaps seven or eight years—but will not be released until the parole board considers it safe for them to be released back into the community. Those sex offenders who currently receive determinate prison sentences and whom, in the end, we have to release even though we know that they still pose a danger to families and children in our communities will no longer have to be released until it is absolutely safe for us to do so. That is a huge strengthening of the law and of public protection, which I hope commands support on both sides of the House.
	The hon. Gentleman was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Sexual Offences Act 2003, in which we toughened the law in relation to rape and a number of other sexual crimes in order to make it absolutely clear that those who commit those types of offence will face ever increasing penalties as part of their rightful punishment for the wrong that they have done and to strengthen public protection arrangements. In that way, potential future victims will not become victims.
	The multi-agency public protection arrangements that we have in place in the United Kingdom are a huge step forward from anything we ever had before. The police, the probation service and the prison service are the three leading agents within the development of multi-agency public protection arrangements at local level, and local authorities, housing providers, health authorities and trusts have a duty to co-operate with those arrangements. We can tightly manage all who pose a significant risk in our community so that we can protect our children and other vulnerable people.
	The 2003 Act made considerable changes to the sex offenders register. For example, we reduced the time within which offenders must notify changes to their home address and other registered details. We provided that all notifications have to be made in person at police stations where the police can take fingerprints and photographs. We provided that every registered sex offender has to attend at least once every 12 months at a police station. Those are much more stringent requirements for sex offender registration than applied before.
	Failure to comply with those requirements—this is an important point, and the hon. Gentleman and I discussed it briefly in an earlier exchange—is a criminal offence under section 91 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and under section 17(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Under those provisions, a constable already has a general power to enter any premises for the purposes of arresting a sex offender for such an offence. In other words, where a sex offender is contravening the registration requirements, a police constable already has the power to enter at that person's address to conduct an investigation and to arrest the individual if they believe that there are reasonable grounds for believing that any offence has been committed, as well as the offence of failing to register. I believe that for the group about whom we are most concerned—the 3 per cent. who are not compliant—there are already grounds to take considerable action. The penalty of up to five years imprisonment is fitting and severe enough to send out the clear warning that those who do not comply will pay a considerable price for not doing so. Let us be clear: registered sex offenders commit a criminal offence if they do not comply with the notification requirements. Routine police powers of entry and search apply if there are reasonable suspicions that such an offence has been committed.
	This amendment to the law would provide an additional power to enter and search premises when there is no suspicion that an offender poses any risk or that an offence has been committed. As I have said, I do not believe that that is justified. It is open to challenge as disproportionate. Those offenders who have committed an offence serious enough to warrant registration—and any sexual offence is a serious matter—and who are attempting to construct a new life and to put the offence behind them should not be subject to further intrusion when they are trying to move forward and there are no grounds to believe that any further offences have been committed.
	I assure the House that we are always exploring new ways of managing the risks posed by serious sex offenders. I have already mentioned that we have taken through the multi-agency public protection arrangements to put them on to a statutory footing. Every year, each of the 42 MAPPA areas must produce a public report specifying the numbers of offenders for whom it is responsible and the ways in which local agencies are working together to manage the risk that those individuals pose and to make sure that those risks are reduced so that we avoid future and unnecessary victims of crime.
	The hon. Member for Daventry was absolutely right.

Horse Riders (Low-flying Aircraft)

Ivor Caplin: I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on securing time for this debate on an issue that has serious implications for the safety of members of the public. It is important at the outset to recognise that the necessary activities that we carry out in training our armed forces personnel to be ready for active service have an impact on the civilian population. I know that the hon. Gentleman accepts that. That is especially true of low flying, which, we acknowledge, can be disturbing at some times. I assure the House that the Ministry of Defence is extremely grateful for the forbearance of and general support from the public in this matter.
	Let me explain why military aircraft operate at low level. Low-flying tactics were developed and refined to let aircrew penetrate hostile airspace while minimising risk to themselves: flying at low level means that aircraft may be masked from radar detection by terrain features and may pass more quickly through the zone of vulnerability from ground-based weapons. It is true that the tactics were developed for the cold war European theatre, where there would have been a high density of anti-aircraft defences and enemy combat aircraft to avoid, but the proliferation of latest generation surface-to-air missiles makes them equally valid today, even when operating against nominally less high-tech or capable forces. As I said to the House in an Adjournment debate last July, low-flying tactics are not employed in all military operations, but military commanders must have the option to employ such tactics if the operational circumstances require them. As the hon. Gentleman accepts, the skills can be perfected only through rigorous and regular practice.
	Low-level flying is demanding on our aircrew and is a highly perishable skill that requires continuous practice. No matter how important we consider it to be that fixed-wing aircraft have the capability to operate at low level, it is even more important for helicopters. Battlefield helicopters, whether in support, attack or observation roles, rely at all times on flying low. Being relatively slow, they rely on terrain features such as trees, hedges and so on to mask them from detection and hostile fire for as long as possible. Unlike fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters cannot fly at heights that would place them above hostile threats.
	Low-flying support helicopters have played a vital role in recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Battlefield helicopters from all three services manoeuvring at low level were fundamental to the success of our ground forces' operations. Crews currently on peace enforcement operations in Iraq by day and by night are advised by operational commanders to fly as low and as fast as is commensurate with the task in hand. Low-level flying tactics therefore remain as valid today as they always have been. However, the substance of the hon. Gentleman's speech was the impact on horse riding and his constituent, Mrs. Carol Lewis. He has written to me on a number of occasions about the issue, and he has passed on her address. I could discuss the letters that I have written to the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think that we have time to do so. We need to consider whether avoidance measures are appropriate for Mrs. Lewis's dressage business. I undertake to look again at the issue, and come back to the hon. Gentleman in the near future.

Ivor Caplin: I undertake to give the hon. Gentleman a response by the end of March.
	Now that I have undertaken to review the case of the hon. Gentleman's constituent I want to deal with some of the general issues about horse riding, because they are important. We do not, and cannot, ignore the fact that over the past nine years there have been three incidents, as he pointed out, in which riders lost their lives when their horses were startled by helicopters. It is the interaction between horse riders and helicopters that attracts the most criticism. The need to strike a balance between essential low flying and the requirements of the horse-riding community has come to prominence again recently as the result of some particularly tragic circumstances. The hon. Gentleman outlined three cases, the first of which took place in Yorkshire in 1996, when a young woman called Alexandra Nixon died after the horse that she was riding was startled by a pair of Chinook helicopters flying over the brow of the hill. As the horse bolted, Miss Nixon was thrown and, in particularly tragic circumstances, suffered fatal injuries.
	The second incident has perhaps received the most publicity and occurred in Lincolnshire in June 2003. Three friends were riding along a bridleway when a Chinook helicopter flew at low level towards them, then passed over them. All three horses bolted and Mrs. Heather Bell was thrown from her horse. She died in hospital as a result of head injuries that she received in the fall. An extremely detailed inquest, to which the Ministry of Defence gave full its co-operation, examined her death, and I shall deal with some of the coroner's findings in a moment. However, we can deal with that case in more detail next Thursday, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) has secured an Adjournment debate on the matter. The third incident occurred in Gwent in December 2003, when Melanie Dodds was riding along a bridle path adjacent to the A48. A Puma helicopter flew over her, startling the horse, which bolted into traffic, resulting in Ms Dodd's death. The Ministry of Defence greatly regrets the events that gave rise to those tragic circumstances, and I should like to take this opportunity to express our condolences to the families of those three women.
	All three cases were, of course, the subject of inquests, and it is important to note that in two of the three cases the finding of the inquest was accidental death. That may have given rise, after the death of Miss Nixon, to perceptions on the part of some people of an inadequate response by the Ministry of Defence. At the time, the accident may have seemed to be a one-off occurrence and the resulting actions of an internal review may have seemed to be limited. We now know, from the two tragic events in 2003, that we may not have fully appreciated the risks posed by the activities of low-flying helicopters. In light of these events, and particularly following the inquest into the death of Mrs. Bell, I assure the House that we are seeking to learn lessons and to ensure that they are properly applied.
	I assure the House that our aircrew do not deliberately fly over horse riders. They try to avoid them whenever it is safe and practicable to do so, but horses are not as obvious from the air as people may believe and by the time an animal is seen, it is often too late for an aircraft to take safe and effective avoiding action. Sometimes that would risk creating more disturbance than simply continuing on an existing flight path. However, helicopter aircrew are specifically trained to deal with situations when they might unexpectedly encounter horse riders. The aircrew will observe carefully as they proceed on their flight path and if it is apparent that they will come close to, or overfly, horse riders they will alert the handling pilot so that they can consider taking avoiding action if it is safe and practicable to do so.
	As I said earlier, we co-operated fully with the inquest into the death of Mrs. Bell. Subsequently, the coroner made nine recommendations, to which the hon. Member for Buckingham referred. They included reducing the areas in which helicopter low-flying training takes place, making more use of flying training simulators, improving communications with the public, and using improved technology to assist aircrew in detecting and avoiding horse riders. As part of our response to the recommendations, we have set up a working group to study the totality of low-flying helicopter training and to consider carefully the recommendations. We mean to ensure that we carry out the minimum amount of low-flying necessary to maintain the operational readiness of our forces. We have sought to keep the coroner fully appraised of our actions and he recently attended a meeting with the assistant Chief of the Air Staff to discuss the progress that we have made.
	On Thursday, I shall deal in more detail with the coroner's specific recommendations, but will refer now to one or two. On the use of simulators, to which the hon. Gentleman specifically referred, we already try to make as much use of them as possible and more simulator training may be available for newer aircraft. For example, in the case of the Apache helicopter, approximately 50 per cent. of conversion-to-type training is carried out on simulators. However, although many existing simulators provide substantial training for our crews, technical limitations in the visual systems does not allow tactical low flying to be adequately replicated to provide satisfactory training. In addition, many other experiences, particularly relating to working with troops on the ground, cannot be adequately replicated in a simulator and I hope that the House accepts that.
	The coroner said that we should improve our communication with the public and I am pleased to be able to tell the House that we launched a new public information telephone service this week. It enables members of the public to ring a freephone number—0800 51 55 44—which I hope hon. Members will make available to their constituents. There are limitations and the hon. Gentleman has pointed them out this afternoon. For example, at present the information is available only for complete areas of low-flying activities, rather than sections of them. In addition, we are unable to provide information on that phone line in respect of low-flying jet aircraft because jets cover such large areas in the course of a flight, and at such speed, that it is simply not practicable to do so, but I hope the House will recognise the improvements that we are trying to make in this important matter. I confirm that we will keep the information provided on the hotline under review to see how it can be continually improved.
	Horse riding is a hazardous activity, given that horses can be easily spooked. For instance, the National Farmers Union and the British Horse Society state that in the United Kingdom there are more than 2.4 million horse riders and an estimated 965,000 horses. Each year, there are 3,000 road traffic accidents involving horses, and in the last four years those have resulted in 34 fatalities and 221 injured riders. Although, clearly, it is incumbent on the Ministry of Defence to do what we can to reduce any risk that may arise from our activities, riders too have a responsibility for their own safety, and that of others. For instance, the British Horse Society gives good advice, in its "Be Safe, Be Seen" leaflet, for riders to wear high-visibility clothing, and we are now conducting research into how the use of such clothing may improve their visibility to helicopter aircrew. When our trials are concluded, we intend to discuss that in greater detail with the British Horse Society so that the work may be pursued in the future. Indeed, officials from the Ministry of Defence have been invited to participate in the British Horse Society's annual safety conference later this year.
	Some ask if low-flying aircraft can avoid areas where horse riding takes place, or simply avoid all horse-riding establishments. Given the wide spread of such activity, that would be difficult, but we are sympathetic to the needs of the equestrian community, in particular the Riding for the Disabled Association's schools. We have more than 40 avoidance zones in place covering those areas.
	I hope that I have demonstrated to the House that we are seeking to minimise the risk to members of the public from our low-flying activities. It is a difficult balance to strike, but the Ministry of Defence accepts that it has a responsibility to the public. However, we also have a duty to the personnel of the armed forces to ensure that they are adequately trained for the tasks that we ask them to carry out. Time and again, we ask our forces to be ready to defend our interests, and those of our allies, anywhere in an unstable and unpredictable world. I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to the professionalism of the men and women of our armed forces who undertake those duties. The ability to fly low is essential, particularly for helicopters. We will take every opportunity to make use of simulation, and other opportunities offered in the margins of overseas exercises—as the hon. Gentleman mentioned—but the majority of the training has to take place in the safe environment offered in the UK.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Three o'clock.

CORRECTION

1 March 2005: In col. 912, fourth line from end, delete "340".